I would therefore desire him to consider that it is but poor eight miles from _Shandy-Hall_ to Dr. _Slop_, the man-midwife’s house:—and that whilst _Obadiah_ has been going those said miles and back, I have brought my uncle _Toby_ from _Namur_, quite across all _Flanders_, into _England_:—That I have had him ill upon my hands near four years;—and have since travelled him and Corporal _Trim_ in a chariot-and-four, a journey of near two hundred miles down into _Yorkshire._—all which put together, must have prepared the reader’s imagination for the entrance of Dr. _Slop_ upon the stage,—as much, at least (I hope) as a dance, a song, or a concerto between the acts.
If my hypercritick is intractable, alledging, that two minutes and thirteen seconds are no more than two minutes and thirteen seconds,—when I have said all I can about them; and that this plea, though it might save me dramatically, will damn me biographically, rendering my book from this very moment, a professed ROMANCE, which, before, was a book apocryphal:——If I am thus pressed—I then put an end to the whole objection and controversy about it all at once,——by acquainting him, that _Obadiah_ had not got above threescore yards from the stable-yard, before he met with Dr. _Slop_;—and indeed he gave a dirty proof that he had met with him, and was within an ace of giving a tragical one too.
Imagine to yourself;—but this had better begin a new chapter.
C H A P. XXXIV
IMAGINE to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor _Slop_, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horse-guards.
Such were the out-lines of Dr. _Slop_’s figure, which—if you have read _Hogarth_’s analysis of beauty, and if you have not, I wish you would;——you must know, may as certainly be caricatured, and conveyed to the mind by three strokes as three hundred.
Imagine such a one,—for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. _Slop_’s figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling thro’ the dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour——but of strength,——alack!——scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition.——They were not.——Imagine to yourself, _Obadiah_ mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverse way.
Pray, Sir, let me interest you a moment in this description.
Had Dr. _Slop_ beheld _Obadiah_ a mile off, posting in a narrow lane directly towards him, at that monstrous rate,—splashing and plunging like a devil thro’ thick and thin, as he approached, would not such a phænomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it, round its axis,—have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr. _Slop_ in his situation, than the _worst_ of _Whiston_’s comets?—To say nothing of the NUCLEUS; that is, of _Obadiah_ and the coach-horse.—In my idea, the vortex alone of ’em was enough to have involved and carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor’s pony, quite away with it. What then do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. _Slop_ have been, when you read (which you are just going to do) that he was advancing thus warily along towards _Shandy-Hall_, and had approached to within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden-wall,—and in the dirtiest part of a dirty lane,—when _Obadiah_ and his coach-horse turned the corner, rapid, furious,—pop,—full upon him!—Nothing, I think, in nature, can be supposed more terrible than such a rencounter,—so imprompt! so ill prepared to stand the shock of it as Dr. _Slop_ was.
What could Dr. _Slop_ do?——he crossed himself +—Pugh!—but the doctor, Sir, was a Papist.—No matter; he had better have kept hold of the pummel.—He had so;—nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing at all; for in crossing himself he let go his whip,——and in attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as it slipped, he lost his stirrup,——in losing which he lost his seat;——and in the multitude of all these losses (which, by the bye, shews what little advantage there is in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost his presence of mind. So that without waiting for _Obadiah_’s onset, he left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in the stile and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it would have been) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the mire.
_Obadiah_ pull’d off his cap twice to Dr. _Slop_;—once as he was falling,—and then again when he saw him seated.——Ill-timed complaisance;—had not the fellow better have stopped his horse, and got off and help’d him?—Sir, he did all that his situation would allow;—but the MOMENTUM of the coach-horse was so great, that _Obadiah_ could not do it all at once; he rode in a circle three times round Dr. _Slop_, before he could fully accomplish it any how;—and at the last, when he did stop his beast, ’twas done with such an explosion of mud, that _Obadiah_ had better have been a league off. In short, never was a Dr. _Slop_ so beluted, and so transubstantiated, since that affair came into fashion.
C H A P. XXXV
WHEN Dr. _Slop_ entered the back parlour, where my father and my uncle _Toby_ were discoursing upon the nature of women,——it was hard to determine whether Dr. _Slop_’s figure, or Dr. _Slop_’s presence, occasioned more surprize to them; for as the accident happened so near the house, as not to make it worth while for _Obadiah_ to remount him,——_Obadiah_ had led him in as he was, _unwiped, unappointed, unannealed_, with all his stains and blotches on him.—He stood like _Hamlet_’s ghost, motionless and speechless, for a full minute and a half at the parlour-door (_Obadiah_ still holding his hand) with all the majesty of mud. His hinder parts, upon which he had received his fall, totally besmeared,——and in every other part of him, blotched over in such a manner with _Obadiah_’s explosion, that you would have sworn (without mental reservation) that every grain of it had taken effect.
Here was a fair opportunity for my uncle _Toby_ to have triumphed over my father in his turn;—for no mortal, who had beheld Dr. _Slop_ in that pickle, could have dissented from so much, at least, of my uncle _Toby_’s opinion, “That mayhap his sister might not care to let such a Dr. _Slop_ come so near her ****” But it was the _Argumentum ad hominem_; and if my uncle _Toby_ was not very expert at it, you may think, he might not care to use it.——No; the reason was,—’twas not his nature to insult.
Dr. _Slop_’s presence at that time, was no less problematical than the mode of it; tho’ it is certain, one moment’s reflexion in my father might have solved it; for he had apprized Dr. _Slop_ but the week before, that my mother was at her full reckoning; and as the doctor had heard nothing since, ’twas natural and very political too in him, to have taken a ride to _Shandy-Hall_, as he did, merely to see how matters went on.
But my father’s mind took unfortunately a wrong turn in the investigation; running, like the hypercritick’s, altogether upon the ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door,—measuring their distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation, as to have power to think of nothing else,——common-place infirmity of the greatest mathematicians! working with might and main at the demonstration, and so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have none left in them to draw the corollary, to do good with.
The ringing of the bell, and the rap upon the door, struck likewise strong upon the sensorium of my uncle _Toby_,—but it excited a very different train of thoughts;—the two irreconcileable pulsations instantly brought _Stevinus_, the great engineer, along with them, into my uncle _Toby_’s mind. What business _Stevinus_ had in this affair,—is the greatest problem of all:——It shall be solved,—but not in the next chapter.
C H A P. XXXVI
WRITING, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all;——so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good-breeding, would presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.
For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.
’Tis his turn now;—I have given an ample description of Dr. _Slop_’s sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back-parlour;—his imagination must now go on with it for a while.
Let the reader imagine then, that Dr. _Slop_ has told his tale—and in what words, and with what aggravations, his fancy chooses;—Let him suppose, that _Obadiah_ has told his tale also, and with such rueful looks of affected concern, as he thinks best will contrast the two figures as they stand by each other.—Let him imagine, that my father has stepped up stairs to see my mother.—And, to conclude this work of imagination,—let him imagine the doctor washed,—rubbed down, and condoled,—felicitated,—got into a pair of _Obadiah_’s pumps, stepping forwards towards the door, upon the very point of entering upon action.